The Quad 8-track in my 78 Linkn Mark V has eaten ~6 tapes (out of probably ~100 tapes I've put through it and ~200 plays)...Most were not it's fault though, and most survived. Many tapes are having splice glue failure these days and I've tested a good number of 'new to me' tapes in it*. When the splice lets go if there is enough stick left on a loose end to cling to the capstan things can go down hill before you know it...
The radio in mine has only 3 mount points + antenna needed to wiggle it out of the dash, then I can unbolt the bottom and manually spin the capstan to unwrap the tape without damaging it. A little smoothing and splicing after that, and often one can't tell from playback that anything bad happened to the cart.
One or two of the victims (and IIRC the only ones to 'die') were 'extended' home made mix tapes....You see I've got enough Disco on vinyl I like well enough that it would fill more than a couple 90 Min tapes....I decided I wanted to add another ~albums length to that and added about as much as the reel could still hold, on to it (apparently I wound it too tight). The result: my recorder with a BIG motor could record and play it, but other decks and my Mark could not spin it well and all wanted to eat it...After a couple of fix cycles I gave up on that one. The part that irks me worst is that before I 'extended' that tape it was fine in the Mark and elsewhere.
With how many 8-Tracks are experiencing foam rot, splice failure, etc. You gotta know how to fix the tapes to safely retrieve/revive them from dormancy....I've gotten to the point that if the center/ends become too unwrapped to rewind the spool by hand, I simply wind the end onto a temp reel with belt drive RTR, then use the RTR to rewind the tape on the 8-track spool with the temp reel held on a screw driver as a pivot to minimize wrap tension/tape tension in the final product....I Have saved many a basket case tape that way.
8-tracks can sound VERY good...If the tape was not poorly made, is in good condition, and you have a quality player. I have among my home decks a 3M/Wollensak component deck that has built in Dolby noise reduction...That unit sounds real nice!
*When you find that tape you've wanted for a while and the car your taking it home with has a player, it is hard to resist.
